


Dreamself

by flipwizard



Category: Tangled (2010), Tangled: The Series (Cartoon)
Genre: I’m sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 18:16:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16269701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipwizard/pseuds/flipwizard
Summary: Locked in the Corona dungeon, Varian doesn’t know if dreams or reality are harsher.





	Dreamself

**Author's Note:**

> written completely on a whim. dreams are weird and upsetting sometimes. yes the title is a homestuck thing don’t @ me

Varian looks around, scared, alone. The black rocks that ruined his life surround him. How did he get here? Hadn’t he just been in the Corona jail?

He catches a glimpse of a figure reflected in the uncaring shine of the rocks. Broad shoulders, a red shirt.

A sob escapes Varian and he starts to run. Zigzagging through the jagged maze, the tips of the spikes glowing blue as they catch on his arms and clothes. He trips, stumbles, and falls. Shivering, too weak in both body and spirit to get up, Varian realizes with warm surprise that he’s crashed at the feet of his father.

Quirin turns to the boy crumpled on the ground, his face stern and unsurprised.

“Varian,” he says, “what have you done?”

His son opens his mouth to speak, or perhaps to cry, but nothing happens. He feels a strange weight to his limbs and lifts his head to look towards them. His wrists and ankles are in chains. Had they been like that before? When did they get there?

An all-too-familiar crackling noise causes him to sharply turn his attention back upwards. The amber creeps across the the surface of Quirin’s skin. His face remains blank.

Varian can do nothing but stare. His dad is replaced, more rapidly than seems possible for the amber’s slow growth, with a crystalline structure in his shape.

It seems like an eternity. It seems like a single second.

The amber shatters. Standing in its place is Princess Rapunzel. She laughs harshly. Her face smiles, but her eyes are unsympathetic and mocking.

The moon above eclipses.

. . .

Varian fights off the fog of sleep. Piece by piece, he becomes aware of the world around him. He feels the cold wall of the cell pressed against his back, the unforgiving cot underneath him.

There is a dull pain in his stomach, the kind that he can’t tell if it means he’s starving or about to throw up. He can’t remember the last time he woke up without it.

Ruddiger chitters and pushes his soft nose against Varian’s hand. Varian lets out a broken giggle and strokes his only friend’s fur. He isn’t yet used to seeing hands ungloved.

His face is wet. He wipes one still unnervingly bare hand against his eyes. He can’t quite remember why he had been crying.

The last shreds of the dream are fading, but one thing hasn’t changed upon waking.

He is still alone and scared.


End file.
